Erik Campbell (Final Destination)

Erik Campbell is a character in the supernatural horror film Final Destination Bloodlines (2025), the sixth installment in the Final Destination franchise, directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein. He was created by Guy Busick, Lori Evans Taylor, and Jon Watts and portrayed by Richard Harmon.

Erik Campbell
Final Destination character
Richard Harmon as Erik Campbell
First appearance	Final Destination Bloodlines (2025)
Created by	Guy Busick Lori Evans Taylor Jon Watts
Portrayed by	Richard Harmon
In-universe information
Occupation	Tattoo artist
Family	Iris Campbell (legal grandmother) Paul Campbell (legal grandfather) Jerry Fenbury (biological father) Howard Campbell (legal father) Brenda Campbell (mother) Julia Campbell (half-sister) Bobby Campbell (half-brother) Stefani Reyes (cousin) Charlie Reyes (cousin) Darlene Campbell (aunt) Marty Reyes (uncle)
Home	Cloverdale, New York
Status	Deceased
Cause of death	Crushed and impaled inside an MRI machine by a wheelchair

Erik is introduced as the son of Howard and Brenda Campbell, being the oldest of their three children. In the 1960s, his paternal grandmother Iris had a vision of a restaurant tower collapsing and prevented the disaster, saving herself and hundreds of others. As Erik and his family were not supposed to exist, Death itself targets Iris' bloodlines, killing them in order of lineage. When his younger sister is killed, seemingly out of order, Erik learns he is not a biological descendant of Iris, being borne out of his mother's affair with another man. While attempting to help his brother Bobby cancel out Death's list, Erik dies by getting sucked into a malfunctioning magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine by a wheelchair that crushes and impales him.

In developing the cast of Bloodlines, Lipovsky stated that they wished to avoid creating one-dimensional characters, wanting to feature ones with layers to them instead. The reveal about Erik's parentage came from the crew wanting to subvert audience expectations regarding the order of the characters' deaths; one discarded concept involved twins whose birth order was uncertain. Initially, Erik was envisioned as an online streamer who died while livestreaming a virtual reality game. A lifelong fan of the franchise, Harmon was cast as Erik eight months after his first audition, with the delay being due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Harmon helped influence many of his character's scenes and dialogue by improvising his lines and actions or making suggestions to the production crew. From the beginning, Lipovsky and Stein hoped to feature a death scene involving an MRI machine, but were unsure where to place such a sequence in the film; they also questioned its ethical implications. In the end, they included the concept as it received a positive response from the production team.

Following the release of Bloodlines, Erik became a fan favorite. Critics often singled out Harmon's performance as among the best in the film, recognizing him as a scene stealer and praising him for adding comic relief. Erik's fake-out death scene at his tattoo parlor and his actual death involving an MRI machine were also praised by critics, with the latter deemed the best death scene in Bloodlines. Erik's death was also analyzed for its accuracy by scientific experts.

Role

Erik is introduced as the son of Howard and Brenda Campbell, and the older brother of Julia and Bobby, living with his family in Cloverdale, New York. His aunt is Darlene, whose children are his cousins Stefani and Charlie Reyes. All of them are descendants of Iris Campbell, Erik's paternal grandmother. In the late 1960s, she prevented the collapse of the Sky View Tower after she foresaw it in a vision, saving hundreds in the process. Because the survivors were supposed to die in the disaster, Death itself came for them and their descendants, who would have not been begotten had Iris not intervened. Everyone perished in freak accidents; siblings died in the order that they were born.

Erik and his family attend Iris's funeral after she let herself die in front of Stefani, who was being told by Iris that Death is after their bloodline. During a barbecue later that day, a chain reaction causes a lawnmower to shred Howard's head. Erik is warned by Stefani that he is the next Campbell to die, but he ignores her and goes to work at his tattoo parlor. While closing the parlor, some cleaning fluid spills on the floor and catches fire. Erik falls onto the fire but is protected by his leather jacket.

The following day, Erik runs into Stefani and Charlie, who insist that he is still next. When they fail to save Julia from being crushed by a garbage truck's compactor, they question why Death would skip Erik over and go for Julia. Brenda reveals Erik is not Howard's biological son; having marital problems at one point, Brenda had an affair with a neighbor named Jerry Fenbury, and Howard chose to raise Erik as his own son. As Erik was not a descendant of Iris, he was not targeted by Death.

Stefani, Charlie, Darlene, and Bobby go to a hospital in the hopes of getting answers from "JB", a friend of Iris. Erik joins them in the hopes of saving Bobby's life. There, they learn "JB" is William Bludworth, who works as a forensic pathologist. Bludworth informs them that the only way to escape Death is to have one's heart stop beating and then be resuscitated. However, he warns that interfering in Death's design can have dire consequences.

Following Bludworth's advise, Erik takes Bobby into a room with a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, planning to have his brother flatline by eating a snack containing nuts, which Bobby is allergic to, so that doctors can revive him. Unbeknownst to them, the MRI machine gets turned on, which proceeds to rip Erik's piercings out. The machine then causes a wheelchair behind Erik to push him inside, which crushes and impales him.

Development

Creation and casting

The Final Destination horror film series began in 2000, with its fifth instalment Final Destination 5 being released in 2011. Each film follows an established formula: a character has a vision about a disaster involving multiple casualties, which the protagonist and a few others manage to avoid; as these characters were not meant to survive the disaster, Death itself comes after them, with the survivors dying in freak accidents.^[1] The franchise's sixth instalment, Final Destination Bloodlines (2025) was directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein and written by Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor, based on a story developed by Busick, Taylor, and Jon Watts.^[2]

According to Lipovsky, as Bloodlines was the sixth instalment in the series, the intent was to modify the formula and subvert audience expectations, ensuring that "even if [someone's] a massive fan of the franchise, [they] didn't know where things were going".^[1] The film's focus on a family that is hunted by Death across generations was Watts' idea, who initially pitched the concept to New Line Cinema.^[3] Producer Craig Perry stated that due to Bloodlines following a family and having the order of the characters' death established early on, they considered a variety of ways to subvert audience expectations.^[4] One initial idea was for two members of the Campbell family to be twins, with the characters being unsure which twin was born first, until they both died.^[5] However, Perry viewed the concept as tonally "problematic" and it was abandoned.^[6] Once the concept involving twins was discarded, it was decided to have one of the character's be revealed as biologically unrelated to the rest of the Campbell family;^[7] according to Busick, this concept is one the crew had early into the production of Bloodlines.^[8] Following the film's release, Stein clarified that during an early draft of Bloodlines, Erik was a live streamer and died while playing a virtual reality game during one of his live streams.^[9]

Richard Harmon found out about Final Destination Bloodlines being in production through his agent, who informed him via email that they had set up an audition for him.^[10] A lifelong fan of the Final Destination franchise, Harmon said in an interview with IndieWire that he felt like he had to be part of the film, auditioning for the roles of Erik and Paul, the character's grandfather.^[10] Due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, Harmon did not receive an update concerning his audition for eight months. After production resumed, Harmon was asked to audition for the role of Erik again, and the following day had an online meeting with Bloodlines' directors Lipovsky and Stein. A week after the meeting, Harmon was informed by his agent that he had landed the role, which he described as one of the best experiences of his life.^[10] Harmon's involvement was officially announced alongside the rest of the film's cast in March 2024.^[11]

Characterization

Lipovsky recognized that prior films in the Final Destination franchise often featured characters that were flat, which ensured audiences enjoyed seeing them die.^[12] For Bloodlines, he and Stein wanted to use a similar starting point in having the characters seem stereotypical, but then reveal the cast as more layered than audiences expected.^[12] Following the release of Bloodlines, Harmon noted that critics often described Erik as "a bit of a dick".^[10] He acknowledged that Erik "looks like a horror trope" and recognized that audiences would make negative assumptions about him based on his "alt-looking emo, punk-rock" appearance.^[10] However, Harmon believed that such perceptions of Erik were inaccurate, arguing that Erik is "misunderstood" and noting how he wanted the character to be likable.^[10]

Harmon realized Erik would be more than just a stereotype when he read the script and saw that Erik had a picture of himself with his father Howard as his phone lock screen. This helped him understand that Erik's love for his family is his "driving force".^[10] Harmon believed Erik's love for his family is prominently displayed when he tells Stefani to stop confronting them about Death's plan, recognizing how it is upsetting his mother Brenda. Harmon also highlighted Erik's decision to go to the hospital and help Bobby cheat Death, arguing that despite the reveal over Erik's parentage, Bobby is "still his little brother and [Erik] won't let him die".^[10] Co-writer Guy Busick similarly recognized Erik's love for his family and argued that his main flaw was that he "cared too much".^[13] However, Busick also described Erik as "kinda stupid", noting that his plan to help Bobby escape Death's list was not well-thought out,^[14] and argued that his "hubris" is what led to him being targeted by Death, despite not being a descendant of Iris.^[3]

Filming

Directors Zach Lipovsky (left) and Adam Stein (right) asked Richard Harmon to improvise some of his lines, with Stein describing him as an "incredible improviser".^[12]

In an interview, Stein stated that he and Lipovsky allowed the film's cast members to rehearse and improvise various scenes before shooting started, to help build chemistry between them.^[15] According to Stein, this led to Erik being the character that underwent the most changes from the script to the finished movie.^[16] Stein and Lipovsky have both recognized that Harmon is well-known for his improvisational skills.^[12][17] Lipovsky noted that while many actors try to bring bring comedy into a role when asked to do improv, Harmon does it "from a character space and level" while managing to be "very dramatic but also incredibly hilarious".^[18]

For the scene where Erik discovers that Howard is not his biological father and that his biological father is a man called Jerry Fenbury, the directors asked Harmon to improvise his character's reaction.^[12] Harmon improvised various reactions, using a different one for each take. One of his reactions ("Oh, God, is that why he always calls me Buckaroo?") could not be used because it caused his fellow castmates to break character and start laughing.^[10] Harmon clarified that the reaction of the characters to Erik's parentage was meant to indicate that Jerry is "a fucking loser".^[10] For one take, he decided to go against script directions and used the line "Fuck, mom. Fenbury got you too?!" instead.^[10]

The scene at the tattoo parlor involving Erik's nose piercing getting hooked to a chain took five days to shoot and occurred during the second week of filming.^[19][10] According to Harmon, the scene did not contain any computer-generated graphics, consisting only of practical effects, including the fire ignited by chemical fluid on the parlor's floor.^[19] To film the scene, Harmon had wires attached behind him to hold him in place. Although the chain that gets tangled in Erik's nose piercing was real, it had a "breakaway weight" to ensure Harmon's safety; if the wires holding him up were to break, so would the chain.^[19] Harmon performed his own stunts for the scene, with the exception of Erik falling off the chair and into the flames below him.^[20] Despite the difficulty of the stunts involved, he enjoyed filming the scene, describing it as one of his favorites in the film.^[21]

MRI machine death

According to Lipovsky, having a death scene involving an MRI machine is something the crew conceived early on during production of Bloodlines; however, there was uncertainty over where in the film it should be placed.^[22] Lipovsky and the crew also "debated the ethics" of featuring such as scene in Bloodlines, recognizing that previous films had impacted viewers and consumers regarding particular objects or activities.^[22] Despite these questions, Lipovsky and Stein decided in favour of including the MRI death scene in the film as it was "kind of everyone's favorite scene".^[22]

To prepare for the scene, Busick and Evans Taylor did research on accidents involving MRI machines.^[3] According to Stein, the crew discovered that while most accidents did not involve human injuries, there were several instances of objects such as "oxygen tanks or gurneys get[ting] sucked towards MRIs".^[22] According to Lipovsky, recognizing the need to "push reality beyond the scientific level [to] make a horror scene out of" an MRI machine, they intentionally chose to set Erik's death in a hospital that also functions as a research center; this helped justify the MRI machine in the movie reaching a magnetic level high enough to kill Erik and Bobby.^[22]

The MRI scene was the third one Harmon filmed with Owen Patrick Joyner (Bobby), during the first week of shooting. Harmon explained that while it was intended for the scene to include some comedy, it was also "important emotionally" to show that although Erik felt confident about his plan to kill and revive Bobby, he was still scared and unsure if it would actually work.^[10] Harmon believed that his chemistry with Joyner helped convey the familial love between their characters.^[10]

Erik having a penile piercing was Harmon's idea, arguing it made sense for the character to have one given "the way that he's tattooed and [...] pierced".^[23] Stein and Lipovsky had earlier considered the idea and decided to implement it at Harmon's suggestion.^[23] For Erik's death where the wheelchair begins to impale him, a torso duplicate of Harmon got created that was folded in reverse and had "breakaway tattooed skins and an elaborate rig to tear it apart".^[24] When Erik is inside the machine, to film his spine getting bent backwards, Harmon laid on a board, with a stuntman underneath it; as the board and Harmon were pulled inside the machine, the stuntman's legs were sticking out of it.^[20]

Reception

Richard Harmon (pictured 2016) received positive reviews for his performance.^[25]

Erik received a positive response from fans and critics. John Squires of Bloody Disgusting, IndieWire's Alison Foreman, and ComicBook.com writer Charlie Ridgely have referred to Erik as a fan favorite,^[26][10] with Ridgely also describing him as the film's breakout character.^[27] Also writing for ComicBook.com, Spencer Perry opined that Erik was the most interesting character in the film.^[28] Rafael Motamayor of /Film praised Bloodlines's focus on a family as it gave the film an "emotional undertone", highlighting Erik's attempt to save Bobby, despite the reveal Erik himself was not targeted by Death.^[29] Foreman also described Erik as a tragic figure in that he tries to help his family but ends up dying for his actions.^[10]

Harmon's performance was praised by critics.^[25] Perry and Jonathan Sim of ComingSoon.net both highlighted Harmon as one of the best actors in the film.^[28][30] Todd Gilchrist, writing for Variety, praised Harmon's performance as "surprisingly thoughtful",^[31] with The Guardian's Radheyan Simonpillai, who commended the entire cast, also singling out Harmon's portrayal of Erik.^[32] Harmon was also described as a scene stealer by Ridgely, /Film's BJ Colangelo, and Jacob Oller of The A.V. Club,^[27][33][34] with Foreman describing him as "magnetic".^[35] Beatrice Loayza of The New York Times and The Hollywood Reporter writer Frank Scheck took notice of Harmon's comedic talent in the film.^[36][37]

Several critics highlighted Erik's near-death scene in the tattoo parlor. Katie Walsh of The Seattle Times praised the scene for its execution,^[38] with NME's Jordan Bassett describing it as a "fabulously nasty set-piece".^[39] Jesse Hassenger of Paste also recognized the scene for being humorous.^[40] Vulture writer Bilge Ebiri describes Erik's fake-out death scene as "hugely elaborate", also viewing his survival as surprising.^[41] Relating to this, Jamie Graham of Empire praised the reveal that Erik is not a descendant of Iris, and thus not hunted by Death, for managing to subvert audiences' expectations.^[42]

Erik's eventual death scene involving an MRI machine was praised. Scheck viewed Erik's death as the best one in Bloodlines.^[37] Foreman deemed it the best in the franchise, describing the scene as making her emotional and recognizing it for "intertwining humor, horror, and heart".^[35][10] Joe George of Den of Geek similarly described Erik's death — alongside Bobby's — as the sixth best death scene in the franchise.^[43] George also viewed Erik and Bobby's love for each other as making their deaths "poignant".^[43] Relating to this, Oller praised Harmon's chemistry with Joyner.^[34]

His death was also analyzed by experts for its scientific accuracy. Ben Inglis, physicist and manager at the University of California Berkeley Brain Imaging Center, and Max Wintermark, Chair of the Department of Neuroradiology at the University of Texas' MD Anderson Cancer Center, spoke with The Today Show writer Sarah Jacoby, informing her that most MRI machines are incapable of increasing in magnetic power; whenever there is a change in the strength of an MRI machine's magnetic field, its magnetic pull will become weaker, rather than stronger.^[22] However, Inglis did acknowledge that the magnets within MRI machines are strong enough to pull various types of metallic objects in them, with Jacoby noting different instances of metallic objects — like oxygen tanks and wheelchairs — getting sucked into such machines; some incidents even leading to patients getting injured.^[22]